Hermitcraft Angst Oneshots :D || REQUESTS CLOSED

Deserve - Tango

They thought he deserved this. They thought he had worked hard and that working meant rewards. Oh, how wrong they were.

Tango deserves none of this. He didn't deserve the diamonds clutched in tight in his white-knuckled fist, he didn't deserve the friends that cared, let alone the server of Hermitcraft itself. He would rather it all disappeared.

Actually, no. He wished he would disappear. Then they would stop having problems. Then he would stop finding fault in himself. It would mean that he wouldn't matter, and that in itself meant that he would be free.

The hermit clutched his vest, gaze trailing over the raw wooden planks of the chests stacked against his wall. Blue concrete pounded at the edges of his vision, but he wouldn't focus on that. Couldn't focus on that.

Tugging a chest forward so he could flip open the lid, Tango drew out a cloak and stuffed his diamonds in its place. The cloak had been gifted to him long ago, a parting gift from a friend. It pulsed with something almost like magic, almost like a deep sense of foreboding, but not a full sense of either.

Runes were sewn into the insides of the deep and well-hidden pockets, gracefully slipping against the fabric and keeping out of sight. The cloak was enchanted, a strange enchantment, one he hadn't ever heard of before his friend had handed it over and explained it to him.

'You just sit there and people won't see you! You can sneak anywhere!' Tango remembered a young version of himself turning over the fabric in his hands, holding it up to inspect it, and looking up quizzically at his excited friend's face.

"Really?" Tango had inquired incredulously.

It had turned out it was a bit more complicated than that. It was more of an enchantment that evaded attention. Someone might give you a glance, and the runes would slide that attention over to say, that flowerpot. What a lovely flowerpot! Suddenly, the other person's attention would be transferred to a different object, or something like that.

It supposedly didn't work exactly the same way if someone was purposefully looking for the wearer. Tango was doubtful of that happening, though, since he had been doing his best to a) not avoid social interaction b) go out to do normal things such as buying from the shopping district, and c) continue to work on his base.

It would be simple to slip away, Nobody needed to know.

Tango shifted the cloak around in his hands until he found the clasp. Unfastening it, he slung it around his shoulders and let the cloak settle against his back.

His friend was gone. He had left Tango, in roughly the same way Tango was going to leave Hermitcraft.

The hermit shrugged his shoulders, trying to make the cloak settle better. Truth was, it looked thin and slick from the outside, but that was just another way to shed attention. In reality it felt bulky and too stiff, but it would do its job.

Tango bunched the cloak around his shoulders to let his elytra unfurl and sprang from the ground. Fireworks let out loud, exploding booms that shook the air, but the hermits were used to that kind of travel.

Finally, after a few anxious minutes of the cloak threatening to billow back and tangle the elytra, a purple-y, indigo hue bled into the horizon where Tango was squinting. Soon the dark swirls of a large portal came into view and approached at a steady pace.

Tango realized with a jolt that he was out of rockets. Firing off his last one, the hermit tried to reach back into his inventory and check for any others.

Bad move.

The sudden motion set off a chain reaction. First, the elytra tipped and spiraled, trying to account for the change in careful balance. Next, Tango's grip on the cloak came loose, allowing the folds to spring from their prison and attack the pair of fabric wings attached to his back. Dead last in the chain, Tango fell. (haha, "dead" last. Foreshadowing is great isn't it lads)

The figure that had been gliding moments before dropped like a rock, diving for the water below. An island loomed just out of Tango's reach, a shimmering, star-and-starlight infused portal resting on the crest of a hill. Tango reached for it, watching his own hands grasp for a freedom he had been so certain would be his just seconds earlier.

"Maybe this is just another kind of freedom. . .' Tango wondered to himself as he flipped over in the air. And flipped again, the air struggling against the bulky cloak that had claimed a mind of its own.

Out of the blue came the sound of someone else, blasting fireworks and getting closer. Twisting to the best of his ability to see this newcomer, Tango spotted a flash of color, and then on his next rotation he was able to identify a familiar face.

A hand reached out for Tango, but the hermit was struggling too much, the cloak causing too much trouble in the air.

"TANGO! GRAB MY HAND!"

"I CA-"

An explosion of a force colliding with water rocked the air. The breath erupted from Tango's lungs. Oxygen had never felt so far away as he plummeted. Funny, he thought once he entered the water he would stop falling. His world started to tint black around the edges, slowly, until in a rush it spilled across his mind in an icy rage and dragged him away.

Jets from the blast forced the second hermit back and tore the cloak from Tango's shoulders. As the figure recovered in the air, they let out a loud, anguished yell. The cloak whipped through the air, falling through the desperate fingers grabbing at the cloth and settling on the water.

The cloak filled with liquid within seconds and dragged the fabric down into the depths. Tango was already gone, and he wasn't coming back.

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